The Pleasure Police [Hardcover]

David Shaw (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1996

The reading public seems to have an insatiable appetite for books pointing out the annoying and infuriating in American life--from The Death of Common Sense to In Defense of Elitism to I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional. The Pleasure Police, David Shaw's wickedly gleeful defense of good sex, good booze, good food and a good cigar, should hit the same nerve.



Why, Shaw wonders, are so many people hell-bent on ruining the pleasures of everyone else? The religious right thunders on about what consenting adults do in the bedroom; the feminist left wants to make flirtation a crime; hysterical health advocates warn against eating anything except tofu and kale; a tidal wave of repressive antismoking laws is passed based on extremely dubious secondhand smoke research; charlatan diet gurus use guilt and quackery to create a forty-billion-dollar-a-year industry; total strangers feel free to comment on the alcohol content of their fellow diners' beverages.



Shaw takes after these zealots with gusto, wit, and just the right bit of malice. In his view life is a feast, not an endurance test, and he takes great glee in mocking out the absurdity and self-righteousness of the crusades of the pleasure police.



The Pleasure Police is the book to be read while sipping an icy cold martini.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Whew. Just when the religious right and alarmist left were closing in ever so smugly with an overload of everything--and they do mean everything--gives you cancer, makes you fat or is immoral, David Shaw rescues us with a well-researched defense of pleasurable activities. As Shaw, the media critic for The Los Angeles Times, quotes a sociologist friend, "Don't people realize every scientific study shows that the single best thing you can do for your health is have fun?" Apparently not, as Shaw points out with an investigation into our Puritanical past, the excesses of the 1960s and the contradictions of living in fear during our current improved standard of living. The bottom line? Relax and enjoy.

From Publishers Weekly

If you like to drink, eat, smoke and have sex without the "pleasure police" intruding on your fun, this is the book for you. In a reasoned and provocative look at America's new abolitionists, Pulitzer Prize-winner Shaw analyzes how the politically correct "Puritans and the congenital alarmists are increasingly trying to leech all joy from our daily lives." Shaw rages against the "nutrition Nazis," who take all the satisfaction out of eating good foods, and the "neo-Prohibitionists," who refuse to acknowledge the beneficial effects of red wine; and although he is against cigarette smoking personally, he laments that he cannot enjoy a cigar at an outdoor baseball game because of the antismoking frenzy in the country. He saves his best barbs for the "bluenosed brethren" who would outlaw sex as either sinful, immoral or unhealthy. He ridicules those who make presidential sex habits a test of "character" and castigates the Catholic church for its "assault on pleasure, especially sexual pleasure." He calls for the legalization of prostitution, condemns feminist Andrea Dworkin and chides those who advocate censorship. An irreverent guide to enjoying the good life.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 307 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (May 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385475683
• ISBN-13: 978-0385475686
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,037,404 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enjoy yourself - you actually might live longer., August 6, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: The Pleasure Police (Hardcover)

This is a nice bit of naughtiness in an otherwise oh so politically correct world. Shaw shows us that most of what we are taught to be afraid of, in most cases won't hurt us at all. There is a good bit of science to the book, but what carries you along is the daring attitude that life is to be enjoyed, not just prolonged. It's time somebody said all this, and David Shaw says it all clearly, succinctly, and with no small amount of common sense. Go ahead, live a little, read The Pleasure Police, and then don't ever worry about them again.